by Anna Martin
“I definitely felt a responsibility to restore the house,” Henry’s voice said from the TV, and Henry prized his fingers apart to watch. He was surprised and strangely pleased to note that he looked good. Composed. “It was in a bad state of disrepair when I arrived here a few months ago, and we’ve done a lot of work to bring it up to this standard.”
The interview concluded with an announcement that the house would be open to the public in the next few weeks, before cutting back to the two news people in the studio.
“That was good!” Stella said, leaning over and pressing a kiss to Henry’s cheek. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled and looked to Ryan for his approval. He got it in the form of a shy smile and fingers that tightened around his own. Andy offered him a smirk, which Henry decided was preferable to the ribbing he’d get from the cricket boys.
Stella looked at their joined hands and frowned a little, boosting Jack farther up onto her lap, where he continued to play with one of his toy trains.
“You know you’re safe here, right?” she said to them in a low voice. “You don’t need to hide.”
Ryan blushed. Henry smiled and nodded. “Thanks, Stell.”
Later, once Jack had been put to bed and Ryan had read him a bedtime story, they settled back on the sofa with Ryan’s arm wrapped solidly around Henry’s shoulders. Henry found the corner between neck and shoulder that he’d grown to adore and snuggled there, taking Stella’s words to heart and letting himself just be.
They finished off a second bottle of wine between the four of them, and Ryan kept Henry’s hand in his as they stumbled home at some unfathomable time in the morning.
“Do we have a game tomorrow?” Henry asked as they stripped off clothes and snuggled up in his bed.
“No,” Ryan said. He curled his body around Henry’s and held him tightly. “Not until next week now.”
“Okay. Good.”
“If I told you I was really proud of you, would you hate me?”
Henry snorted. “Yes,” he said, digging his elbow into Ryan’s side. Secretly, where Ryan couldn’t see, he allowed himself a little smile.
Chapter Twenty One
Henry was already at Shenal’s office on the high street when Stella and Ryan arrived. He’d asked that they meet him there, and they arrived together. He wasn’t quite sure if this was a good thing or not. Both kept their expressions painfully neutral, but he got the distinct impression they had been talking to each other on the way.
“Hi, guys,” Shenal said with a big, sunny grin. “Sorry, my coffee machine is broken, so if you want anything, I’ll need to go next door.”
“It’s fine,” Stella said, sitting in one of the extra chairs Shenal had brought out for the meeting. “I’m just a bit concerned if everything’s okay.”
It was typical of Stella, to jump straight into her concerns rather than beating around the bush with carefully crafted hellos.
“Everything’s fine,” Shenal said in her soothing voice.
Instead of sitting, Ryan came to stand behind Henry and gently massaged his shoulders. Henry could feel his partner’s tension leak down through his arms, into his fingers, and out into the muscles of Henry’s neck and back.
There was no other way about it. He had to be honest.
“I want—I would like,” he corrected, “to propose going into business with the two of you,” Henry said, twisting out of Ryan’s grasp and trying to nudge him into a chair.
“Okay,” Stella said, leaning forward with her elbows resting on the knees of her jeans. “Tell me more.”
“Within the next six months, Stretton House is going to be turning over a profit,” Henry said. “A good profit, as far as we can tell. We’ve projected very conservative running costs, and there’s a small loan secured against the house, which will be paid off within the first year. Most of the staff are going to be hired on a casual basis, with only two permanent members of staff.”
“Our projections are no more than that,” Shenal continued. “But even with the current economic climate, we’re looking to turn over a considerable amount every year. By going into partnership with the farm and the pub, the profits would be split three ways.”
“But we’ll be splitting our profits three ways,” Stella said drily.
“Yes,” Shenal said. “But with the profits from the house, you should take home more a year than you do now. Quite a bit more.”
She passed Ryan and Stella several stapled pieces of paper with all the calculations they’d painstakingly collected. Stella skimmed her copy, while Ryan only gave it a cursory glance before returning his intense stare to Henry, as if trying to figure out exactly what the catch was.
“I’m in,” he said simply, putting his paperwork back on Shenal’s desk. “Big sister gets final say in it, of course, but I don’t see a problem.”
Stella nodded slowly. “It looks fine to me,” she said. “I want to talk to Andy first, and maybe mum and dad, see what they say. But I think it looks like a good plan for all of us.”
“Excellent,” Shenal said.
“Will you tell me what else is going on, now?” Ryan asked.
Henry took a deep breath. “My visa is about to run out,” he said in a rush.
The furrows in Ryan’s brow deepened. “What do you mean?”
“When I arrived here,” Henry said, “I was given a six-month visa. It’s pretty standard. We didn’t bother applying for any longer than that because, to be honest, I never thought I’d stay that long.”
“Can’t you apply for another one?” Ryan asked.
“No.” Henry shook his head.
“We’ve been trying,” Shenal added, folding her hands on her desk and leaning forward. “But his application has been denied. We can’t reapply now for another six months. He has to leave the UK and go back to the States, or he could be arrested and charged for being here as an illegal immigrant.”
“You have to be kidding me,” Ryan exploded. “He has family here! His great-grandmother—”
“Nell’s dead, Ryan,” Henry said flatly. “I don’t have any family here anymore. And even if I did, my connection to this country goes back three generations. That’s too far. It doesn’t count.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“That’s why I want to go into a partnership with you,” Henry said. “I trust you two to look after the house while I’m not here. To make sure it’s being run properly. I’m going to start looking to hire a general manager now. Hopefully, they’ll be in place before I leave. I don’t need you to do any real work, just make sure that the general manager doesn’t do anything stupid with it.”
“We can do that for you,” Stella said gently. “We’ll take good care of it.”
“No,” Ryan said furiously, standing again and pacing to the other side of the room. “You have to be able to figure something else out. I mean, there must be a loophole somewhere that means you can stay.” Then his face fell. “Unless… unless you want to move back to New York?”
Henry’s moment of hesitation lasted half a second too long.
“Fuck this,” Ryan said and took two long strides toward the door before Stella grabbed his wrist and hurled him back.
“Sit the fuck down,” she told him.
To spite her, he remained standing.
“I miss my home,” Henry said gently.
“I thought this was your home now.”
“It is!”
“Ryan, shut the fuck up,” Stella sighed. “The poor boy lived in New York goddamn City for the first thirty years of his life—”
“Twenty-nine,” Henry corrected, stung.
Stella moved her glare from her brother to Henry, and he shrank back under its power.
“And then he moves here. Of course he’s going to find it different. Of course it’s going to take some adjusting to, you bloody muppet! You spend a weekend in Bristol, and you start getting edgy because of all the people!”
“You’ll go back
,” Ryan said, throwing out the accusations now and not caring where they landed. “You’ll go back, remember what you had, and forget what you have here. Then you’ll never want to come back to this stupid fucking village.”
“My parents drive me crazy, you know,” Henry said. “But I haven’t seen them in a long time, so I want to go and catch up with them. I have no idea what I’m going to do when I’m back there, where I’m going to work and live and… fuck. If I could stay here, I would, Ryan, and I’m going to do whatever I can to get back as quickly as possible.”
“I’m exploring some other options,” Shenal said quietly. “It’s not necessarily going to be quick or easy, but the last thing any of us want is for Henry to be barred from visiting the UK because he stayed too long and overshot his visa.”
Ryan nodded and wiped the back of his sleeve across his face. Within seconds, Henry had launched himself out of his chair and into Ryan’s arms, holding him tightly.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured into Ryan’s neck. “I didn’t want to tell you in case Shenal managed to figure it out. I didn’t mean to keep it from you.”
It took a moment for Ryan’s arms to wrap around Henry’s waist—about the same amount of time that Henry had hesitated, causing Ryan’s initial flash of anger. Ryan squeezed gently and stepped back out of Henry’s arms.
“I’m not mad,” he said. “I just need some time, okay?”
Henry nodded and watched him leave. When the door clicked shut, Henry sagged, all of the air leaving his body at once. Stella caught him in a hug to prop him back up again.
“Give him that time, sweetheart,” she said gently. “He’ll come round.”
He couldn’t help but feel like the dark cloud of Ryan’s sadness and anger followed him for the rest of the day. He had little choice but to return to Stretton House to work on the advert for the general manager role and hope that he found someone qualified, and quickly, to get things set up before he left.
The flights back to New York hadn’t been booked yet. Even though they were getting more expensive by the day, Henry couldn’t quite bring himself to make his return journey permanent. There was still a part of him childishly hoping Shenal would manage to work a miracle that would allow him to stay.
For the next few days, Ryan was crabby and irritable, pushing Henry away during the day, then holding him so, so tightly during the night. It was heart breaking for the both of them. Henry was left with little choice but to contact old friends in New York and ask if he could crash with them for a few days once he got back, just until he found a place of his own.
To make sure it really was only a few of days, he called a couple of realtors, told them what he was looking for and his budget, and made an appointment to go and view some apartments.
He put off booking the flights until the very last minute, not caring that every moment he hesitated they got more and more expensive. It became something of an obsession, checking the prices every day online and wondering how much it would cost him before he made the leap and actually got his credit card out.
In the meantime, he tried to keep things normal, going to the nice supermarket that took twenty minutes or so to drive to, in the next town over, and getting nice groceries to make something good for dinner. He shopped, selecting steaks and the ingredients for sauce, planning to use Ryan’s vegetables to make dinner for them both.
When he arrived home, Hulk was sitting on the front step of the house, maybe waiting for him, Henry decided, when the dog’s ears pricked up as he pulled the car onto the drive. Or maybe not, when he went back to sleep again.
Henry was forced to step over the dog (who refused to move) as he let himself into the house and put the groceries in the fridge. He could see Ryan on the deck out back, sitting hunched over, closed in on himself. It was another heart-wrenching image.
Once he was done, he stepped outside and shut the door behind him. Ryan’s head whipped around, and he was immediately on his feet.
“I didn’t hear you get back.”
“Yeah. Just a minute ago. What’s up?”
“I want you to stay,” Ryan said, stepping forward and gripping Henry’s hand so tightly it hurt. “I want you to stay so, so badly. But I don’t want you to make a decision just because that’s what I want. I want you to have whatever you want too.”
Henry gave him a damp smile. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I can’t have it.”
“What if you could? What if you could stay? What would you do?”
“To be able to stay?”
“Yeah.”
Henry shook his head. “This is stupid.”
“What would you do if I said I found a way for you to stay, but it’s completely crazy? Like, completely, undeniably fucking insane?” Ryan’s voice was a little breathless now, his eyes a little wild, conveying his desperation so openly.
“I’d say….” Henry sniffed. “I’d say, what is it?”
Ryan licked his lips, cupped Henry’s cheek in the palm of his hand, and pressed a soft kiss to Henry’s lips. He broke them apart again before it could lead to anything else and dropped his forehead to rest against Henry’s.
With his eyes closed, Ryan whispered, “Will you marry me?”
Henry’s one single sound caught on his breath, a mixture of shock and laughter. “What?”
“Marry me,” Ryan repeated. “Marry me and stay here.”
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
“I thought you never wanted to get married again.”
“I want to be married to you,” Ryan said defiantly.
A hushed whisper: “You’re crazy.”
Ryan laughed. “Yeah. Probably. Henry, I don’t know if this is going to last another week or for the rest of our lives, and no, I didn’t think I would ever get married again because I never thought I’d ever feel like this for someone else. So right now I have the choice of being married to you and getting to keep you, or letting you leave and maybe never seeing you again.”
“I’m not sure either of those choices are a good thing,” Henry said.
“I am.”
“Oh God,” Henry said, suddenly feeling very light-headed and very sick. “Oh, God.”
Ryan managed to manoeuvre him to sit down on the step and pressed Henry’s head between his knees, rubbing his back reassuringly and encouraging him to take deep breaths.
“I didn’t ever think I’d react like this when someone proposed to me,” Henry said.
“I’m not going to lie, Henry,” Ryan responded, “I’m starting to feel a bit like that myself. You haven’t answered me yet.”
“That’s because you’re insane!” Henry exclaimed.
“I’m insane because I want to marry you?”
“Yes! Wait! That wasn’t a ‘yes I’ll marry you’, that was a ‘yes you’re insane’.”
“Henry,” Ryan said, his voice softening from the heated exchange of words. “Please. I love you. Marry me.”
Try as he might, Henry couldn’t stop the tears that were threatening to spill over. He never cried. Not from things like this.
“You realise that’s the first time you’ve said that?”
“What?”
“That you love me.”
“I love you,” Ryan said again. Then he shouted it. “I love Henry Richardson!”
“Shut up,” Henry said, laughing and pushing his shoulder. “I love you too.”
“And?”
“And of course I’ll marry you.” But it wouldn’t have been them if he didn’t caveat his declaration in some way. “You horrible man.”
Naturally, it wasn’t as simple as “just get married and stay in Cheddar forever.” Nothing ever was, Henry mused, as they drove back to the village after a quick trip up to Weston to register their intent to form a civil partnership. He was impressed at the research Ryan had already done, and was prepared for the questions that were thrown at them when Henry produced his passport and admitted he was a US citizen.
&n
bsp; They had to wait fifteen days now, until they could make it legal.
“You don’t have to agree to this,” Ryan said as he reached for Henry’s thigh and squeezed it. “We can back out at any time.”
“I don’t want to back out,” Henry said calmly.
“Because it might not be easy.”
“I don’t care. It’s worth it.”
“I was thinking—”
“That’s a shock,” Henry interrupted. The hand on his thigh squeezed a little tighter.
“I was thinking,” Ryan continued, “that we’re not going to be able to do this properly in fifteen days. Not a proper wedding. We should just go and sign the documents now, then have a ceremony and stuff next year.”
Henry was silent for a long moment while he thought about what Ryan was saying… then thought about it some more.
“Hmm.”
“Look, we’re not going to be able to get my parents back here, your parents over here, food and accommodation and suits and all that shit done in two weeks.”
“Honey, you underestimate my powers of organisation.”
Ryan laughed. “No, I don’t. I promise. But I want to be able to give you something spectacular. Not something we cobbled together in a couple of weeks because that was all the time we had. I want us to be able to do it at the house.”
“Stretton House?”
“Yeah. Not the farmhouse. Jeez.”
“We shouldn’t tread on Stella’s toes either,” Henry said softly. “It’s her wedding New Year’s.”
“Exactly,” Ryan agreed. “All we need is two witnesses. Once it’s all done and we’ve gone through all the interviews with the Border Agency, then we can relax and plan.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Waiting two weeks was hell.
Henry couldn’t dislodge the feeling in his stomach that he was doing something wrong. It was like being back at school, waiting to be caught out for cheating on a test. His mom wasn’t very happy with his decision not to go back home, even less pleased when he tried to explain that he had a new home now, that he was in love. His promise of a trip back to see her as soon as he could didn’t go all the way to placating her, but it was a start.
